FDBusiness.com

A new report says that the costs of producing a key enabling technology for smart packaging, printed electronics, is about to about to drop by 99%; prompting many leading brand owners to put multi-disciplinary teams onto the adoption of the new paper thin electronics for their high volume packaging. All of these trends, including detailed ten year forecasts, are covered in the IDTechEx report “Smart Packaging Comes to Market: Brand Enhancement with Electronics 2013-2023”.

This report reveals the global demand for electronic smart packaging devices is currently at a tipping point and will grow rapidly to $1.45 billion in 2023. The electronic packaging (e-packaging) market will remain primarily in consumer packaged goods (CPG) reaching 14.5 billion units that have electronic functionality by 2023.

The rapid growth will be driven by trials now being carried out by leading CPG companies and the rapid technical developments emanating for over 3000 organisations, half of them academic, that are currently working on printed and potentially printed electronics.

For example it addresses the ageing population’s need for disposable medical testers and drug delivery devices. Electronic packaging addresses the fact that one third of us have difficulty reading ever smaller instructions.
It will provide a host of consumer benefits and challenge competition who do not adopt it. Impetus is mainly about modern merchandising – progressing well beyond static print – and dramatically better consumer propositions, including enhanced product security.

There will also be growth from existing applications such as talking pizza boxes; winking logos on multipacks of biscuits or bottles of rum; compliance monitoring blister packs in drug trials; plastic bottles of drugs that prompt the user; testers on batteries; and reprogrammable decoration on mobile phones.

IDTechEx’s projected adoption only represents a few per cent of CPG packages being fitted with these devices in 2023. There are still many challenges to be addressed, including creating sustainable e-packaging products rather than one-off projects. Cost and lack of integrators and complete product designers are current limitations. The report reveals many ways in which brands can create a sharp increase in market share, customer satisfaction and profitability. It analyses case studies of successes and failures.